Critical Thinking

We shed light on any subject by thinking analytically, or critically, about available information. Critical thinking can be defined as, “Reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. More precisely, critical thinking involves assessing the authenticity, accuracy, and/or worth of knowledge claims and arguments. This process requires careful, precise, persistent and objective analysis of any knowledge claim or belief to judge its validity and/or worth.” Source: definition of critical thinking

The practice of critical thinking sets out to assess the validity of premises, logic of arguments, and reliability of conclusions. In practice, discerning the truth of an argument is not always a simple task. Core Concepts in Critical Thinking Introduction to Statements or Claims

An argument is a set of statements. The premises – facts or propositions – are intended to provide support for the conclusion. The conclusion is asserted to be true on the basis of the premises. If an argument is cogent, then a true conclusion follows logically from true premises.

Critical thinking is not equivalent to that vernacular meaning of skepticism that refers to a habitual, cynical attitude of incredulity. However, where philosophical skepticism equates to a methodology for obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing, then skepticism is a phase of critical thinking.

Scientific method is akin to formalized skepticism in that it proceeds by rigorous scrutiny of falsifiable hypotheses. Any hypotheses that are demonstrated to be faulty will be discarded, and alternated explanations for empirical observations will be formulated and tested. Eventually, any reasonable hypotheses that are not disproven will be regarded as so acceptable as to be elevated to the level of scientific theory.

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Logic

Logic can be symbolic or informal.

Symbolic logic examines the precise symbolic representation of logical concepts, the abstract relationships between these concepts, and the systematization of these relationships. Informal logic involves the application of logical principles to assessment the types of informal arguments and claims that we encounter in daily life.

Propositional logic is a branch of symbolic logic dealing with propositions as units and with their combinations and the connectives that relate them – if, then compound statements. Propositional Logic Terms and Symbols Proposition evaluator.

Categorical logic and categorical syllogisms are more concrete than is propositional logic – some, all, and/not. Venn diagram evaluator.

An understanding of Fallacies of Logic – recognized structural errors in argumentation – provides a shortcut to assessing the cogency of an argument. We most often encounter propositional arguments in daily life, while the logic of science, and of mathematics in particular, is more often categorical.

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Piaget

Jean Piaget (1996-1980) was an enormously influential Swiss child psychologist. His structuralist philosophy held that “In all fields of life (organic, mental, social) there exist ‘totalities’ qualitatively distinct from their parts and imposing on them an organization.”

In 1919, Piaget conducted intelligence tests under the direction of Alfred Binet. Piaget became fascinated not so much with measuring IQ as with determining why children made logical errors. Piaget subsequently devoted his life's work to determining how children passed through stages of cognitive development–via assimilation and accommodation –to construct cognitive schemas.

Piaget conducted empirical research on "genetic epistemology" – the sequential development of logic throughout childhood. He concluded that, "the growth of knowledge is a progressive construction of logically embedded structures superseding one another by a process of inclusion of lower less powerful logical means into higher and more powerful ones up to adulthood."

Piaget used the term assimilation to refer to the process in which an individual adjusts mentally to the environment. This process might require a reinterpretation of the evidence of their senses. Accommodation involves the internal modification of mental concepts that accompanies assimilation.

Piaget's research followed children's cognitive development from birth through to the stage of formal operations (~ age 11). Children pass through substages and stages in a set sequence, building each cognitive schema upon that preceding. However, beyond the logical schema acquired in childhood, not all individuals attain the full repetoir of logical operations necessary for critical thinking. The worldviews of many adults exhibit considerable philosophical tension, and many adults display internally inconsistent, illogical, emotional reasoning fraught with many of the errors found in fallacious arguments. Religious beliefs, particularly those of YECs and other creationists, force illogical inconsistencies into the thinking process.

Websites: Jean Piaget Society, About Piaget, Resources for Students : Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development :

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